“Horror [films] should be a space of freedom, a territory for experimentation. But what happens is often the opposite.” These are the words of Pascal Laugier, in an Electric Sheep interview regarding his ethos on his horror classic Martyrs (2008). His desire with the premier piece of New French Extreme cinema was to peel away from the conventions of the many horror films he had seen before. To make something transgressive and decidedly not “politically correct”, pushing the boundaries through the horrific elements of the genre to unsettle the audience and leave them unable to predict what was going to happen next. And it was and still is a genuine success in that regard. It was provocative enough to earn an 18+ rating by the French Commission for Film Classification, an anomaly for a country with fairly relaxed ratings.

So understandably, his reaction to the 2015 Martyrs remake was going to be beyond negative. While promoting his film Incident in a Ghostland, Laugier reacted quite memorably when asked about the film. It’s a movie he claims he could only get through 20 minutes of, with some more colorful descriptors for how it made him feel that I’m not entirely sure we can say them here. And can you really blame him?

THE MARKETING THAT MADE A MARTYR OF AMERICAN AUDIENCES

Hailed as one of the most unnecessary and poorly made horror remakes of all time, Martyrs (2015) was ambitious in its blatant rehashing. It had the audacity to market itself as “The Ultimate Horror Movie” in a now infamous movie poster that was set up at Berlin’s European Film Market in 2015. It was very cheap in how it got its viewers, banking on the shock and awe that the original generated to build a crowd. I have heard way too many stories of people being tricked into watching the 2015 version simply because it was the one advertised to them, horribly unaware that the 2008 version was an option.

With a prodigious studio like Blumhouse Films distributing it, it’s easy to understand how the remake got so many eyes on it. Which wouldn’t be so egregious on its own; had it been a shot for shot remake, an English localization for the subtitles-hating crowd, it might have worked. It could have even been a unique experience like Haneke’s Funny Games remake. Had it even just toned down the violence and recut to keep the original’s essence, I believe it might have found an audience; after all, a good deal of the film’s horror lies in what it implies rather than what we see.

But that wasn’t enough: it had to be rewritten from the ground up, and morphed into the most sanitized, most  unproblematic story of friendship and flat characters you might ever see in a horror film.

GOODBYE TO (THE REAL) LUCIE AND ANNA

If you aren’t familiar with the plot of the original Martyrs, please go watch Laugier’s original first, and return here to delve into the SPOILERS AHEAD. It’s a waste of good suffering not to.

The story of Lucie’s tragic relationship with Anna and the mystery of the creature haunting her was one that, while maybe a bit predictable to some viewers, was nevertheless a perfectly acted tale of trauma. The remake version is regrettably only made toothless by Mark L. Smith’s treatment of the script; there’s no dead romance, and no tragic failure by one to save the other. Just two gal pals doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Or right thing, given it flattens the actions the duo take in trying to balance the moral scales of Lucie’s home invasion that kicks things off.

It’s not enough for Lucie to succumb to her mental illness and take her own life, she has to be gunned down saving a child with Anna, survive, and then die through martyrdom later (but only in time to be rescued and get her happy ending). There’s no moral ambiguity to her actions at the beginning of the film, because the cosmic debt of hurting people has been paid by her good actions. There is no shock of seeing the film switch main characters halfway through and deny you the escape from its world of sorrow and sacrifice. It’s a long and boring ride through maudlin flashbacks and weak attempts to scare you.

ONE OF THE BLEAKEST ENDINGS IN HORROR HISTORY EXITS STAGE LEFT

And the reward for it all is the worst possible ending they could have gone for. The skincrawling martyrdom of Anna, flayed by her captors and sent into a state of telestic madness on the brink of death, is gone. It’s watered down to a painless-looking crucifixion that could have been an affair to remember if it had been done with any level of commitment to depicting how agonizing that barbaric kind of death was.

But here, it feels cheap.

The finale looks and smells like one of those megachurch plays, trading in the uncomfortably sterile environment that the pseudo-scientific torture took place in for flowing white curtains and dining room lighting. It’s ultimately undercut of any nuance and existential threat the original had, instead going for the incredibly American ending of Anna running in with a gun and killing members of the cult (as we all know, ideologies and systematic violence are easily destroyed by bullets). If there was ever a point where it cemented itself as Old American Blandness, the antithesis to New French Extreme, it would be the pithy one-liner response Anna has for the cult leader Eleanor when she kills her with an action movie headshot.

“What is it? What did she see?”
“You tell me.”

Of course, after delivering that, she begins to succumb to her earlier gunshot wound, curling up next to Lucie. It’s a pyrrhic victory where the two women ultimately die together, both experiencing the sensation of martyrdom and, maybe going to heaven? The scene’s cinematic language sure does imply a happy ending, with the music swelling as Anna and Lucie are carried off into another flashback of their happy childhood together. And the crowd goes mild!  

THE WALL OF NOISE THAT IS THE MARTYRS REMAKE

Turning the quiet and unsettling affair of the Mademoiselle and her secret society’s insidious motivations into a noisy and unimpressive rescue was the pinnacle of what made watching Martyrs (2015) a miserable experience. And really, when I stopped to give the film a chance and find out if it had any redeeming qualities, it’s the first qualifier that bothered me the most—the noise. I can forgive terrible dialogue, I can even forgive lousy lighting. But the sound was a pivotal element that didn’t need to be sacrificed to tell a different version of the story.

Barring one piece of music that plays during a pivotal moment of Lucie’s suffering (when she faces “the monster” for the first time in the family’s home), the original film’s audio and music is perfectly mixed. It isn’t overbearing, it doesn’t try to force you to feel anything with overblown sound effects and a reused soundtrack. Even Lucie and Anna’s staggered breaths and painful reactions are at the perfect volume. There isn’t a thing out of place, with every movement and noise painstakingly orchestrated to make you feel uncomfortable. It is an orchestra of negative emotions. And that analogy is what really made me realize what the Martyrs remake is.

Martyrs (2015) is bad pop music.

It’s too clean, it’s too loud, it’s underproduced at points and overproduced at others. It’s inoffensive, even with the same premise and many of the same beats as the original’s. It’s too deadened of its roots to communicate anything of value. It relies on trends and the climate around it to try and stand out, desperately grabbing at motifs it’s heard before and quashing them down into one-dimensional reenactments.

And like most bad pop songs, it never had a shot of crossing into people’s long-term memory as anything other than a faint tune you kind of remember. Instead of something that occasionally pops up in a retail store while you’re looking for jeans or in the supermarket’s frozen food aisle, you might hear it brought up in conversation. A streaming service will recommend it, and then just as soon as you gave an amused exhale through your nose (“like I’ll ever watch that again”), it will be gone once more.

Mourn Martyrs (2015), because it never had a shot to begin with.

Part I: The movie

Martyrs (2008) is infamously known as one of the most disturbing films of the 21st century. It is often considered a standout of the New French Extremity wave, though writer-directed Pascal Laugier disavowed that label. And while Martyrs does use visceral gore and nihilistic themes (hallmarks of the genre) to make its point, it’s a mistake to label the film as gratuitous or exploitative. 

The story begins with Lucie as a young traumatized girl who escapes a rundown building. At an orphanage, Lucie refuses to tell the adults about her abuse, though her friend Anna tries to comfort her. Next, a 15 year time jump introduces us to a family having breakfast in their home. The mother has pulled a mouse out of the septic tank, restoring water pressure to the building. The parents praise their daughter’s athletic achievements while they mock their son for dropping out of school. “I want to study something I like,” he tries to explain, “law isn’t my thing.” Before we can learn anything more about these people, an adult Lucie interrupts their breakfast, and the violence continues. She is soon joined by Anna, who tries to protect Lucie while mitigating the situation. Over the next 85 minutes, the violence escalates with very few reprieves.

Everything about Martyrs is designed to be destabilizing. The point of view shifts every 20-ish minutes, at first focusing on Lucie, then switching to Anna, and then ultimately switching to their aggressors. The viewer is forced to cling to every line of dialogue, every glance, every movement. Watching Martyrs becomes an endurance test, especially when so much of the violence in the first half of the movie involves self-harm. “I really wanted all my [special] effects to be almost medical,” Laugier told WhatCulture back in 2009 while singing the praises of his late friend, VFX supervisor Benoît Lestang. “It’s supposed to be about the flesh, the real condition of the body when you hurt yourself.”

In a conversation with What’s Up Man after Martyrs screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Laugier explained that “any time there is a direct act of violence, it turns the story into something else. There are consequences to what we do.” This is how Martyrs continues it’s dialogue with the viewers long after the film ends. Once you’ve seen the completed film, do you view Lucie’s actions differently? Do you feel guilt, as Anna does, for questioning Lucie’s sanity? Are you frustrated by Anna’s choices? When the aggressors explain their motivations, do you believe them? Martyrs will not answer any of these questions for you.

Though there are no religious symbols in this film, Laugier has said in several interviews that he drew on his Catholic background while writing this story. “The film is a personal reaction to the darkness of our world,” he told the online magazine Electric Sheep back in 2009. He describes the Western world as a place where “evil triumphed a long time ago, where consciences have died out under the reign of money and where people spend their time hurting one another.” He specifically uses the word “martyr” to mean someone who witnesses something to which only they can testify. 

Here is Laugier explaining his movie in his own words:

“It’s a film about suffering. It’s a film about pain. It’s not a film about torture. … My film, for me, is very empathetic. You have to feel for them. I never make a laugh at my main characters. I love them and I want them to stop suffering. It’s a very sad movie. I would even say it could be a depressing film. It’s saying our time is over and evil has eaten everything.” 

Part II: The viewer

I first watched Martyrs in the midst of a downward anxiety spiral – I was intentionally seeking out fucked up movies. Having grown up in a Catholic community, I immediately connected with how suffering is portrayed in this movie. The film left me nauseous and foggy, like my brain was being rewired. I also felt relieved. I had never before considered how institutions fetishize the suffering of others, and this new perspective soothed my anxiety.

The second time I watched Martyrs, now knowing the film’s arc, I could absorb more of the non-violent exposition details sprinkled throughout the story. For example, the few adults that we meet aside from the aggressors all behave callously. The way Anna’s mother speaks to her, the way the parents mock their son – these are ‘small’ acts of violence that are very common in our world. Laugier is pointing to the continuum of violence. Other quiet moments play with reality. If Lucie’s demons are manifestations of her guilt, how did those cuts get on her back? Why does the hammer fall in such a way that leads Anna to uncover the house’s secrets? Despite the film’s brutality, I relish these intricate details. 

On my third viewing (spoilers from here onward), I understood Mademoiselle, and the acolytes that follow her. The way the parents praise their daughter’s athleticism is a nod to the fascist ideology that guides this cult. When Mademoiselle speaks, her words are gibberish, though she clearly believes in her cause. We, as the audience, never see what she sees in her photo album. She justifies her violence when she scoffs “people ignore the existence of suffering… yet everyone’s a victim”. According to her, the “true martyr” she so desperately seeks would be able to transcend the suffering she inflicts, though she is never the one to suffer. Her choices reveal the cowardice behind her philosophy.

Mademoiselle’s hypocrisy is so familiar to me, having grown up Catholic. I remember thinking as a child that I was a hypocrite because I did not believe in God. I attended mass most Sundays, and I always felt dishonest, like my heretical mind was an insult to the other attendees. I felt the need to hide parts of myself to fit in, but as I grew older, I witnessed several of the more pious attendees be violent, emotionally and physically, to their families and the community. I learned that my hidden self was not monstrous, like theirs, just different. My concept of hypocrisy changed; it’s not about dishonesty but a lack of identity. A hypocrite uses ideology to mask the missing identity within themselves.

Mademoiselle’s final act exposes the emptiness of her dogma. She achieves her ultimate goal when she gets a “crystal clear” answer from her martyr. This should be a celebration for her, she should be preaching, bragging even, to her followers. But she has tied her entire identity to this quest, and now that she has her answer, she is left with no purpose. Whether her martyr confirms or disproves her hypothesis doesn’t matter – her ideological quest has ended, and she has no identity left. 

Part III: the violence

Though Mademoiselle and her followers are very organized and very powerful, their nonsensical ideology is not dissimilar to the contradictions in our real world. We treat retail theft as a newsworthy crime, even though corporations regularly steal billions in unpaid wages. Marijuana grown in a basement is an illegal narcotic, while oxycontin produced in a lab is sold as a wonder drug. When a person walks across a country’s border without the right paperwork, they’re branded as a dangerous criminal, and yet countries that drop millions of pounds of explosives on civilians are hailed as heroic. We have, without question, organized our society around a delusional ideology that allows powerful institutions, like Mademoiselle’s, to dole out violence as they see fit.

Every time I watch Martyrs, I feel validated. Simply following society’s rules will not protect me – what rules did Lucie break as a child for her to deserve such a fate? This is not a safe world for children, and institutions are not empathetic. Lucie and Anna may fight back, but doing so does not lead them to a happy conclusion. This is the nihilistic takeaway from Martyrs: institutional violence is both meaningless and inevitable.

But there is a paradox buried in the details of Martyrs. Anna and Lucie, like so many people, are both motivated by empathy. Lucie is trying to help the person she couldn’t save as a child – in many ways, she is the film’s hero. Anna is trying to protect the woman she loves, so she chooses to stay in the house. They both do the best they can, and with their very limited tools, they manage to bring an entire cult to its knees. They cause the death of its leader. It is their so-called ‘insignificance’ that gives them power; two small mice gumming up an entire system of pipes. 

This world may be all violence, as Martyrs suggests, and delusional zealots may write the rules, but if you are reading this, then you have the capacity to feel joy and empathy. You are alive. It is radical to love someone, as Anna does, it is radical to atone for your faults, as Lucie tries to do. In a system that is so cruel, every second that I feel joy is precious and hard-earned. My greatest weapon is empathy, and it brings me joy to understand my power. 

This is my paradoxical reading of Martyrs. The world is cruel and punishing. So try your best, be kind, and cause a ruckus when you can.